


The Sky and the Earth

by sessile



Series: Variations [3]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:07:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24778129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sessile/pseuds/sessile
Summary: A trip to the Crescent City, where Tim is filming.
Relationships: Elizabeth Chambers/Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Series: Variations [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787182
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	The Sky and the Earth

**Author's Note:**

> This is shamelessly and unabashedly a love letter to New Orleans, where I grew up and am currently missing dearly.

  
It’s close to midnight when he arrives in New Orleans. He falls asleep halfway through the Uber drive, it’s been a long day, trying to get things ready so he could make this visit. Liz and the kids won’t be able to make it in another week, so for this week it’ll be him and Timmy. Armie kind of hopes the city remembers even less of him out here. 

It’s been a few years since he’d shot here himself, but something gets calmed in him, being back. New Orleans is something else; he feels a little transported when he’s here. It’s a city out of time. 

_I just got to the hotel,_ he texts Timmy once he’s settled. 

👍  
 _Can I come over?_

_Of course_

He shouldn’t really say that—he knows Tim must have an early call time, he’d been low-key complaining about it all week—but he can’t help it. It’s Tim. 

They fuck like they haven’t seen each other in approximately five months, two weeks, and six days, which is precisely the last time they saw each other. Armie makes Tim come with Tim’s back against the door and a swift blowjob, and Armie gets to take his time relearning parts of Tim’s body while lazily jerking off his cock. Tim lends a hand when he can reach it, and Armie grabs it to help finish him off across Tim’s neck and chest. 

“How long can you stay here?” Armie asks while wiping Tim down. 

Timmy checks the time on the clock radio and groans. “Fuck—I have be in makeup in, like, three hours.” He doesn’t move and just grins up at Armie. 

“We’ll get you some Red Bull on the way back.” Armie grins back. 

“I have to be fucking sad today. I don’t know if that’ll hurt or help.”

Armie’s unrepentant: “I don’t fucking care.”

“Of course you don’t.” Tim winds his arms around Armie’s neck and brings him down for a kiss. 

-

_Ah New Orleans what a fantastic place to get breakfast_

_Fuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuu_

Armie breathes a laugh and tucks into his chicken gumbo, because fuck yeah, he’s in New Orleans and he can get fucking gumbo for breakfast. 

Armie looks out the window and watches the sun starting to rise over the treetops and buildings. It’s gonna be a fucking lovely day. 

-

He doesn’t try to visit set until much later in the afternoon, after he’s actually had some rest. 

Tim, amusingly, is sweating like a sinner in church. Makeup is dabbing him down for what doesn’t look like the first time. Tim flaps his shirt, trying to get some wind going, much to the dismay of the director. 

“Tim—”

“Oh, fuck—I’m sorry,” he laughs, tucking his shirt back in. He catches Armie’s eye and feigns annoyance with a grin. “The fuck are you laughing about?” 

“Did they pour water on you before? You’re fucking drenched.”

“Ha, ha, fuck you, get off my set.”

Armie can physically feel the director stiffen at the implication that it’s anyone’s set but his, and tries to swallow his laugh. 

He hangs back so Timmy can get to work. Within the span of six seconds he watches Tim just melt into character. It never fails to amaze him. He tries not to say it too much to avoid sounding over the top, but he could put Tim in his top ten list of favorite actors, easily. He has told Tim privately, many a time, “I could watch you all day.” And he has. 

-

They go to the Parade later that night with some of the cast and crew. Thankfully it’s actually much too crowded to dance properly so Armie can beg off and just watch everyone from the sidelines. 

Of course within two seconds, someone has swept Timmy up into his arms and is attempting some sort of slow grind against his back. 

When he really starts to get handsy, Armie automatically takes a step toward them to fucking do something; he has to physically sit himself down somewhere so he doesn’t. He looks over at them; Tim has turned in the guy’s arms and is grinding back. 

_Fuck_. He goes outside to smoke. 

-

Timmy catches him leaning on a post outside and on his third cigarette in a row. Tim’s flushed red at the high points on his face and covered in a sheen of sweat; Armie nearly puts him against the wall so he can get his mouth on him. He sucks hard on his cigarette instead and forces a smile. 

Timmy smiles back, wide, and takes in the length of Bourbon St., all the way down.

“God, this city is beautiful,” he murmurs, barely audible over the bass from inside. 

“Tim, there’s a puddle of piss about five feet away from us.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Part of the charm, man. It’s kind of honest about what it is.” 

Armie sees the mass of slightly inebriated to massively intoxicated people milling up and down the street. The people on the Parade balcony are hooting and throwing beads; it’s a Tuesday. Armie watches his smoke go up into the night; things are muggy but there’s a breeze coming from the river. 

He feels Timmy wrapping his arms around him and setting his head on Armie’s shoulder. A wad of beads unceremoniously drops from above and nearly catches Armie on the head; someone yells “Sorry…!” to them below. 

_This city is so fucking ridiculous_ , Armie thinks, but he can’t help his grin. He holds Tim close to him as he watches the people strolling by and listens to the relaxed and sometimes jubilant chatter around them.

The swaths of light glowing down the street from the old buildings, the antique fixtures and modern neon and gas lamps—set against the expanse of black sky… it _is_ nice to look at, he’ll admit that. 

-

He rents a car for the rest of the week and drives out to a restaurant one of ADs, Brandy, had emphatically insisted to him last night that “this is the best fucking seafood you’ll ever eat!” He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’d already had it last time around but his curiosity _was_ piqued. 

When he parks behind the building, the lot itself is made partially out of old oyster shells that have been worn down to dust, like they’d thrown out every discarded shell here instead of in the trash. It nearly covers the entire parking lot; Armie doesn’t know whether to be impressed or not. 

The restaurant is adjacent to a fresh seafood shop, which he takes as a decent sign. When he enters all eyes turn to him, because even though he tried to dress himself down as much as possible with a ratty T, cargo shorts, and some old Vans, he’s still stupid tall and also alone. He asks for a table and he can see the waitress snap to attention at his voice; she might recognize him or will in about five minutes. Armie just hopes he gets his food first. 

-

Okay, Brandy wasn’t wrong. Armie has to restrain himself from making noises as he savors his soft shell crab sandwich and seafood gumbo. He seriously debates on whether to grill the cook about what was in the potatoes. 

The waitress has been hanging around at the bar, trying to shoot surreptitious looks at him, but since she is quite easily the youngest person here despite being probably in her late twenties or early thirties, it looks like it’s just her that knows him. Armie mentally wills her not to take a picture of him stuffing his face. 

She asks for the selfie after the check had been paid; he has to remain seated, she’s so short. She’s excited as hell about the whole thing; Armie figures it’ll be on Instagram before he even leaves. He hasn’t made anything recently so maybe it’ll fly under the radar. 

-

_Good lunch? 😉😉😉😉_

🖕 _yeah_

_Bring me something_

_I already left_

🥺👉👈

Armie swears at the phone and texts back, _you owe me_

😘

Armie mutters, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath as he makes a U-turn. 

-

A shot of him picking up his to-go order, of course, gets posted, too. 

-

Tim takes a bite of the food and genuinely looks up at Armie in bafflement. “ _What the fuck_.”

“Thank Brandy for the rec.”

“You’re welcome!” she hollers from somewhere. 

“This is insane. Where the fuck did you get this?”

“Some mom and pop shack in Kenner. You really haven’t been eating out much, have you? We’re going to need to fix that.” 

Timmy’s barely paying attention to him; he’s too busy eating. 

\- 

“The hell is a muffuletta?” 

“Just… wait,” Armie shushes him as they’re standing in line. The stock here looks like it hasn’t been changed since 1989 but the line is out the door. They got real lucky that production had to break for a few hours due to the outdoor lighting and they didn’t need Tim for the rest of the indoor shots today, so Armie dragged Tim out here to stand in the line in the sun for a sandwich. Tim is wiping his forehead every few minutes. 

“Is the basic rule in New Orleans that if a place looks like it came out of the ‘70s, it’s probably good?” 

“Pretty much.” 

“A lot of New York is old as fuck, of course, but this is a whole other level of old here.” 

“It’s when history can’t afford renovations.” 

They make it to the front; Armie orders the giant sandwich for each of them. Tim shoots him a look that manages to convey completely _this thing is fucking huge and do you honestly think I can eat more than a fraction of it?_ Armie sits them down at the counter seats and waits patiently for Tim to unwrap his sandwich and take a bite. 

“... _Jesus fucking Christ,_ ” Tim mumbles, mouth still full. 

“I told you.” 

“What the fuck,” he adds after swallowing. 

“Welcome to New Orleans.”

Armie gets them a couple cans of Barq’s from the ancient vending machine and they eat the rest of their sandwiches in silence. 

\- 

Armie drives aimlessly to take in the city while Tim’s working.

It’s a weird city. The South in general is weird, with the heat and the floridity and the rawness in everything from the streets to the buildings to the people. New Orleans was an obvious attempt to slap a veneer of civility upon all that; he knows enough of its history to know it was also actively hiding things, as well. There’s a lot of unnameable, unspeakable shit in its history. 

Katrina is what he knows best. He remembers watching with increasing and helpless anger at the response—or more accurately, the lack thereof—to a major U.S. city literally drowning. He couldn’t believe it was happening; now he knows it was entirely privileged naïveté to think that it wasn’t possible.

There’s a stark delineation between the new and old in the houses around where he’s driving; he must be in one of the areas that flooded. He manages to catch a singular building with a faint, rust colored stain that extends in a stock straight line at just a few points around the entire span of the outside brickwork, but it’s unmistakably there—he pulls over and stares at it. It’s almost as high as him, maybe even a little higher. It’s a waterline, it has to be. Over fifteen years and it was still there. 

He looks around him, around the neighborhood. He’d seen the pictures. The entire area must have been underwater. 

He’s going to make sure to bring everyone here when they all have a chance. 

-

“Is it possible for us to eat somewhere that doesn’t have a line,” Timmy gripes, half joking, probably half not, as they wait to go eat charbroiled oysters. 

Armie just bear hugs him from behind, swaying them for a few moments before stepping back. He’s getting more at ease about being visible, he’s been talking about with it someone and it’s been helping, but there’s still the secondary concern of someone getting a photo of the two of them and it bringing a whole host of invasive and probably unmerciful questions. He doesn’t want to put either of them through that. 

He can’t help poking at Timmy, though. He shoves him forward ungraciously when he doesn’t realize the line has moved because he’s on his phone. Tim mutters “bitch” under his breath and finishes texting. 

“Who ya talking to.”

“Saoirse.”

“How’s she doing.”

“Someone clocked her to the ground.”

“... what, really?”

“Someone bumped into her, she fell, and they didn’t give a shit. She’s complaining—very colorfully.” He shows him the conversation—Armie catches words like “unmitigated gall” and “the fall of civilization” and laughs. 

They get inside and Armie concedes they may have made a fucking mistake—the place is seriously ass to elbows in people. He has no fucking clue how he’s supposed to sit anywhere like a normal person.

The hostess shows them to a tiny fucking table jammed into a corner. Tim gives him a pointed look and Armie just shrugs. 

“Have I let you down yet?”

“There’s always room for a first time.”

“Never,” Armie quips back, flashing him a wide smile. Because he’d seriously never would if he could help it. He winks at Tim. 

Tim straight up _blushes_ , and he’s white as snow so it shows up like a scarlet letter. He tries to duck his head behind his cap but Armie sees his answering smile anyway. 

-

Liz and the little ones finally get there, and Armie can’t wait to show them around. Zoo, aquarium—he can’t enough of his children’s delight at all manners of animal. He’s bugging Liz to take a picture of them every two seconds; to her credit, she only starts to flag after lunch and just gives him a look at the umpteenth request. 

“Okay, okay—your turn.”

“Ah, some evidence that they actually have a mother—thank you, dear husband.”

“Anything for you, my dear.” 

They go back to the hotel for naps for everyone; Liz demures and says she’s going to find Timmy. Armie feels a tiny twinge at this—lingering insecurity. Of what, he really can’t specify. Liz still doesn’t like this arrangement, Tim doesn’t like it, they don’t like each other (even though she’s specifically going out to see Tim)—it’s always something. Armie tries to use some therapy speak on himself—take things at face value unless otherwise specified, voice his fears to a trusted third party (usually at his sessions with Mary Ann) and see how they sound out loud first, etc. etc. 

Ford sleeping on his chest is a wonderful cure-all, though. 

-

Liz has been scouring food and travel apps and insists that they eat at this little Italian restaurant near the two universities in the Garden District. She also insists that they take the streetcar to get there. Both he and Timmy just look at each other and shrug. Liz does have good taste, after all. 

Harper and Ford adore the ride, the wind whipping past their excited faces. The sun is at dusk so the heat has relented; the breeze is almost sublime, and the view is really something, he has to admit. He forgets what the architectural style is called—something something Revival—but it’s gorgeous enough that he alternates between Googling it and watching the mansions slide past. 

He catches Tim looking almost pensively at everything; Armie nudges him. 

“What’s up with the face?”

Tim shakes his head, his mouth working to find an answer. He finally says, “I didn’t realize how much of the U.S. I haven’t seen. I didn’t even realize something like this existed here.” His eyes glance around the rickety streetcar, the giant oak trees overshadowing almost everything outside, the dwindling sky shot through with vivid colors on the billows of clouds. Armie watches him absorb everything quietly in his widened eyes, a warm fondness blooming in him. 

He holds Tim’s hand for the rest of the ride. 

-

Armie could have honestly died happy at just spending the rest of the evening sampling wines and eating cannolis at the restaurant, but again, Liz insisted they take a walk down St. Charles. 

And of course she was right to—the street has taken on a different shade of gorgeous in the night time, the aging street lamps dotting the road like a million points of haloed light. The air is at the perfect summer cool and occasionally he even gets something like jasmine or some other redolent flower on the breeze around them. Ford has fallen asleep on his shoulder, and Harper is happily walking between Liz and Timmy, swinging from their hands in her tiny grip. 

Armie’s heart is fit to burst. He doesn’t understand how he got so fucking lucky. He only hopes that he can pay it back tenfold to whatever deity that requires it. He would gladly do so. 

-

He and Tim split off from Liz and the kids. He still gets a little nervous, a little guilty about asking, but Liz tells Harper and Ford to wave good night and her face is so content. He blows a kiss to them as they head back into the hotel. 

They walk over to Tim’s place, which itself is keeping with Tim’s preference towards barely habitable shitholes. Armie is legitimately nervous when they go inside; he just _knows_ there’s some cockroaches lurking, somewhere. 

“Is there a can of Raid in this place,” Armie mutters, checking the couch before he sits down. 

“What, why?” 

Armie deeply sighs and figures he’s just got to deal. “... never mind.”

Timmy throws off his shoes and immediately straddles Armie’s lap. “Hi,” he says quietly but smiling. 

“Hey.” Armie grins and reaches a hand up Tim’s back under his shirt. “... you’ve been working out?”

“... shut up, maybe.”

Armie wants to make another crack to tease him, but he can kind of see this is something Tim is self-conscious about. He drags up Tim’s shirt to lick a path down the center of his chest and puts his hands on the rest of him. “You feel good,” he says, eyes gazing up at his. 

“Yeah?” Tim’s already a little breathless. 

“Yeah.” Armie ducks his head to bite lightly at Tim’s pectoral muscle, earning him a satisfying gasp from Tim, then strips the rest of his shirt off to bite down, harder, at the juncture of his shoulder and neck. Tim moans like it has been punched out of him and reflexively grinds down on Armie’s lap. Armie stays there, biting out other parts of him, secretly pleased at the line of teeth marks trailing down his skin. Tim is being fucking _loud_ ; he hopes he doesn’t have any neighbors with good hearing. 

He tells Tim all this “because I’m about to fuck you until you can’t stand,” said hot in his ear. He can feel Tim grab tighter onto him and nod rapidly into his shoulder, breathing open-mouthed and hard. 

He thinks distantly that he probably should get them to a bed—but there’s no fucking way that was happening, so fuck it. 

-

He just goes ahead and smashes pillow over Tim’s face at one point. “People are going to fucking think we’re shooting porn in here,” Armie breathes, laughing. 

Tim just brings both hands up to clutch onto it and Armie can hear his full-throated—but now muffled—shouting. 

-

Tim passes out. Armie gets to feel smug and self-satisfied for a full thirty seconds before he’s out, too. 

-

“Tim. Call time.”

“ _Fuck off_ …” Tim mumbles, half awake. 

“Tim, get the fuck up before they start banging on your door and see that you’ve been fucking the Facebook guy.” 

Tim laughs, eyes still closed. “People know your name, dude.”

“Yeah, because it sounds like a porn star’s name.” 

“Can’t say you don’t fuck like one.” Armie has to laugh; dirty talk really isn’t Tim’s forte so the compliment comes out with a bit of shaky bravado. He kisses him anyway. 

“Go on, git. I’ll make you some coffee.”

-

“You don’t have any fucking coffee?”

“What? They usually give it to me on set.”

“I’m going back to bed.”

-

They do all make that trip back to where Armie had seen the once-flooded building with the waterline, in the Lakeview area. They all talk about what they remember, him and Liz filling in some gaps in Timmy’s childhood recollections. 

“Damn… I knew it was bad, but I never knew exactly how bad,” Tim says in wonderment, staring at the wall of the building. 

“Yeah, it was pretty horrifying,” Armie says, smoothing his hand over the waterline. 

“The twentieth anniversary is coming up in a few years. Maybe we all could do something,” Liz suggests. 

Armie raises his eyebrows and nods emphatically at that. “Yeah, definitely.”

-

They swing by Tim’s set the next day before they head to the airport. Tim gives each one of them, kids included, long and lingering hugs. Armie shoots a half-amused, half-warning look at the director when he starts to huff about the length of time this was taking. 

“Text me when you’re back.”

“Will do. See you soon.”

“See you guys soon.” 

Liz murmurs to him later in the car, “Well, that was a good trip.”

Armie laces their hands together and gives hers a quick smooch. 

“Tim says the next time he’ll be able to come by is closer to the holidays.” Liz looks lazily over at him. “You’ll help with his room?”

“Of course.”

“Tara will probably come by between then.”

“I like her.”

“She’s kind of lovable.”

Armie shoots a sly look at her. “Huh.”

“... we’ll see how it goes,” Liz demures with a small smile. 

“Yeah. We’ll see how everything goes.” He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back. 

  
  
  
  
_Fin_


End file.
